Recognition pheromones are necessary for establishing and maintaining bonds between members of a group of animals, especially between females and their young. Members of a herd of black-tailed deer recognize one another by the odor of pheromones secreted from their tarsal glands.

The tarsal gland secretions of each individual are slightly different from those of other members of the group and so serve as a form of identification. Fawns use these pheromones to identify their mothers among the female deer in the herd. A fawn may sniff the tarsal glands of a number of females before finding the correct one.

Pheromone Communication is Complex

Although pheromones are known to exist in hundreds of animal species, scientists are still just beginning to understand how this system of chemical communication works. With each new discovery, it becomes more and more obvious that pheromone communication is far more complex than early investi- gators ever imagined. For a time after the discovery of bombykol, many re- searchers thought that each pheromone was a single chemical compound that communicated one kind of chemical message.

But as scientists have continued to look into the chemical language of animals, they have found that, in many species, some pheromones are made up of not just one or two, but many chemical compounds that are precisely blended and balanced. Each component contributes to the overall meaning of the message. Some beaver pheromones, for example, may contain as many as 50 different substances.​The proportions of these chemicals in the pheromone mixture vary somewhat from beaver to beaver, almost like a chemical signature. Futhermore, researchers now know that pheromone communication is more complex in some kinds of animals than in others. In the insect world, for example, pheromones generally trigger very predictable, almost automatic responses.

Pheromone Responses Vary

In fact, many insects have been compared to tiny machines. When exposed to a particular pheromone, they will respond to it in the same way time after time. But this is not the case with other animals, especially mammals. Their responses to pheromones are more complex. In fact, it seems that, among mammals, the same pheromone can mean different things under different circumstances. Learn how they affect humans at https://pommett.webnode.com​To complicate matters even more, environmental factors can make things complicated. Factors such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, and the time of day or year also affect how pheromone messages are sent and interpreted in a wide variety of animal species.

The Role Of Pheromones in Communication

In order to really understand the role that pheromone communication plays in an animal’s life, it is important to know as much as possible about how that animal behaves. Studying large animals in the wild is often difficult. For one thing, animals such as wolves or deer move from place to place, sometimes covering great distances in a short period of time. For this and other reasons, many scientists involved in pheromone research have focused their studies on animals.